It's very hard to try to predict what the NFL will do/not do. But, here's what I see:

Once upon a time, the NFL had not one but two teams in Chicago. (The NFL Cardinals began in Chicago, NOT St. Louis, believe it or not).
Once LA gets two teams again, I would expect the Windy City to get another NFL team.
Tampa Bay and Orlando have an odd type of synergy going. The two don't particularly care for each other, but the two do seem to support each other's franchises. So strike Orlando and replace with LA. Strike OKC and replace with Chicago. As much I would love to see Birmingham get an NFL team, I think it will not happen now due to the emergence of the Nashville Titans. Memphis though, should still get a look. I don't know how the NFL and CFL would work it out, but something should be done so that Toronto can get an NFL team. Toronto has an MLB, NHL, and an NBA team. Why not have the NFL too? Buffalo is in somewhat close proximity to Toronto, but if Buffalo started marketing itself to a different market, like say Ottawa, then both Toronto and Buffalo franchises could co-exist. I like those possibilities better than Birmingham getting a team, so replace B'ham with Toronto.
Also the NFL knows for a fact that not all feasible markets have been tapped yet. There is still one lurking out there, and the NFL likes it a lot: Mexico City. I would replace San Antonio with Mexico City. Other than that, I have no problems.

The CFL plays in the spring and summer and ends in November, so scheduling dates at Rogers Centere might be an issue with an NFL team. Since Toronto also has an MLB team, a Toronto NFL team may be forced to play all its September games on the road.

Toronto is joining MLS, so there is a second possibility for a stadium there, although Toronto FC would need to double or triple the capacity of its 20,000 seat stadium to accomodate an NFL team. There's always the possibility of a new stadium, but it'd have to almost be built exclusively for American Football, since Canadian Football has a very different geometry.

Well here are some demographic numbers to help the discussion along. These are DMAs though. With the death of broadcast TV, I think we will see a different handling of market divisions in the future, but this is a good guide.

Currently 28 of the NFL's 32 teams are in the top 33 markets. Green Bay, New Orleans, Buffalo, and Jacksonville are not.

Growth information has been suprisingly difficult to find on line this morning, beyond an article that suggests the Northeast in general (and NY, Pittsburg, and Baltimore specifically) will see slow population growth and all of the sunbelt (especially houston, california, florida, and Vegas.) with the exception of Louisiana will see rapid population growth. Not all that suprising for weather and educational reasons.

Last edited by finiteman on Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I originally though 8 expansion teams was just a ridiculous number, but now I have come around. There are legitimately 8+ Areas which would be screaming for NFL teams by then and it would make for a simple division of 5 teams in 8 conferences. I think it is entirely likely that most of this time span will take place with an unbalanced number --- say 34 or 36 teams though, until a mass expansion (complete with wide reaching expansion draft) takes place.

The NFL wants a team in Toronto a team in LA and a team in Mexico City. Those are the immediate goals.

I think the NFL will acknowledge the wishes and previous claims of Bills owner Ralph Wilson on Toronto. Wilson will keep the team in Buffalo for as long as he is alive as a covenant with the city, but as soon as he dies that will be the Toronto or Toronto/Buffalo Bills.

Expansion to 34 will happen in the next 8 years to get a team into LA and one into Mexico City. Things could get complicated though. An NFL team like New Orleans, Cinnci, Indy, Baltimore or (gasp) Pittsburgh could really try to move to become the cash cow LA team. In that instance team 34 might be Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Portland, or growth hot spot Las Vegas. In that scenario team 35 would be a replacement team with team 36 joining shortly thereafter.

I think at that point I could see real momentum to jump to 40 teams by 2030.

The Ravens would be forced into the AFC North by the expansion to 40. Putting Baltimore in with NY and New England echoes the division alignment of the 1970's AFC East. The Bills would want to bail on Buffalo for financial reasons and the league would want a team in Toronto, but neither party would want to put a replacement team in Buffalo, so a change in league policy would be announced. Teams could play split schedules in neighboring cities. This precedence would lead a number of teams to follow suit. The Bengals --- one of the smaller market teams would see an opportunity for growth by moving and would bolt for Hartford & Providence. I assigned them the nickname "Steamroller" from the old "Providence Steamroller" NFL team. The Jets would finally wise up/get a push from the league office/get NY on board and move back to a new NY stadium (new Shea? No real idea where. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have your two NY teams playing in NJ.).

The Chiefs would be forced into the North with expansion and moves. The Browns would quickly decide to split their season between Cleveland and Cinnci to take ownership of marketing throughout the state of Ohio. The League would recognize that it makes a ton of sense having 2 teams in each of the 3 huge markets and would expand in Chicago. That way if one team is awful, the giant markets won't lose interest. It essentially guarantees viewership. The League would approach Michael Jordan. Jordan, ever a businessman, would buy in. The Chicago Jordans (self named) would have 23 on their helmet. After the colts left for LA, the league would announce expansion plans to put a new team in Indy. The recently retired hall of Fame QB Peyton Manning would lead the charge to get the expansion franchise. The fans would vote to name the team after him (ala the browns and Jordans) but the humble traditionalist Manning would quietly be negotiating the purchase of the colts name and logo from the Irsays.

The Dolphins would finally be forced south. They would join the jaguars, who would play a split schedule in Orlando to claim ownership of that market and block NFL expansion, in the same division. Nashville would also take advantage of the split city rule. The NFL would expand into Mexico City.

The AFC west would welcome back Seattle even as they lose KC. After Al Davis's death, smarter people would buy the team and move it to San Jose, becoming the Silicon Valley Raiders. That creates more space between the 49ers and Raiders and brings in a much wealthier crowd. After the retirement of Peyton Manning, the Colts record nosedived. This lead to a predictable drop in attendance. The Irsay family used that as cover to move the Colts to serve the southern half of LA. Long beach and Anaheim would both be considered as would a split home arrangement in two southern LA communities.

What has traditionally been the league's highest profile team (The Cowboys under league power broker Stephen Jones) would insist their division stay together and the league would acquiesce. The League would offer the Giants a choice, move to NY and the league would put a new team in NJ or change the name to the NJ Giants. The Giants would take the path of least resistance. The new NFC New York team would be placed to serve the Long Island audience and would be owned by the son of Donald Trump and Ms. New Jersey 2013.

Tom Benson will honor his pact with the city of New Orleans, but when NFL expansion comes around, Benson will cook a deal with the league. The league finds a buyer for the Saints and Benson owns the San Antonio Expansion Franchise. The new owners will in fairly short order realize that New Orleans is small and poor and will try to move to Las Vegas. The commissioner will step in to prevent the headaches of a Las Vegas site and the Saints will end up in Salt Lake City. The white, enthusiastic, and somewhat financially healthy state of Utah will welcome the newly renamed "Heralds" into their chief city. Carolina will take advantage of the new rules to play a split schedule in Charlotte and in Raleigh.

The hard drinking Rose City will finally bring NFL football to the state of Oregon. With the Raiders moving south, the NFL will decide it is finally time to put a team in the wine country, Sacramento. Victoria Beckham would own the Los Angeles Stars. The League would want a team to service Northern LA without totally crippling USC and UCLA attendance like the Raiders did, so they would come up with the concept of a team for LA's rich. The LA Hollywood Stars would play in the NFL's smallest capacity stadium (a mere 50,000) with the NFL highest ticket price and most luxury boxes, located in North Hollywood or Burbank. This would quickly become the league's highest profile team.

Last edited by finiteman on Thu Jan 17, 2008 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think it's worth considering existing markets that could lose teams. Buffalo tops the list with Toronto the likely home. Jacksonville is no lock to maintain and Orlando would be an ideal destination.

See Initiative 91 in S**ttle. It's the reason why the Sonics are leaving. HOWEVER, remember all the new arenas and stadia being built? How many now? Miami might just get its baseball stadium under the gun, a couple other exceptions may be down the pike, but I have a strong suspicion that the days of taxpayer-funded-yet-handed-to-teams stadia are DONE.

That changes the discussion.

BTW, travel off the continent will be pretty much a non-starter. I struggle with competing thoughts that the NFL wouldn't infringe on Canada, but Toronto, eh, don't know how that will turn out. Mexico- that might be another matter.

Last edited by pounder on Wed Feb 20, 2008 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think it is entirely likely that that precidence doesn't take off in the red states. I wish it would, but I doubt it. I live in Denton and the Cowboys and Mavs have gotten huge stadiums/arenas built recently. I can acknowledge that a lot of states are not as sports crazy as Texas, but several are.

As a person who grew up in Wisconsin and is a Packer Fan. Milwaukee will never ever get a NFL team! Ever! Majority of the people at Lambeau Field are MILWAUKEE RESIDENTS! They love driving up to Green Bay every other week, and they won't have it any other way! I don't care if Milwaukee became the biggest city in the World and had 30 million people. Green Bay is their team.

Other Major cities that will never get a NFL Team:Orlando: Unless TB Bucs relocate there years from nowMemphis: See Orlando. Tennesee won't have 2 teams.

I don't think NFL will expand anytime soon, I think they'll be like the IVY Leauge and won't expand. Yes, that might sound foolish since they have expanded many times in my life time. But the 32 format that they have is perfect. Rivalries were preserved.

Using split cities to block expansion wouldn't be new. The Packers did it for years playing up to 1/3 of their games in Milwaukee up until 1994 when Milwaukee County Stadium's capacity was significantly less than Lambeau Field's and there was talk of a new baseball stadium in Milwaukee that would either a) have a smaller capacity than County Stadium and/or b) not being able to fit a football field in it (Miller Park ended up being both). By playing in Milwaukee often the Packers were able to insure there would never be an expansion team in Milwaukee and that Milwaukee wouldn't fall to Bears fans. The Milwaukee games had their own separate season tickets that were moved to Lambeau Field as the Gold Ticket Package for "Milwaukee" fans (vs. the Green Ticket Package for "Green Bay" fans). The Packers need Milwaukee to survive. Their flagship radio station is WTMJ 620 in Milwaukee (the only team in the NFL with their flagship radio station in a different market than the team). I could totally see Jacksonville playing a few games a year in Orlando to insure a team doesn't expand there.

I think if the NFL starts expanding internationally the second Northwest team won't end up in Portland but rather in Vancouver. I think like the MLS, the three Canadian cities that could possibly get an NFL team are Toronto (assuming the Bills are no longer in Buffalo), Vancouver, and Montreal.

I also think if there is a move to expand overseas it will not be one team. There will be at least two. It would be nice to see four so they can play enough divisional games so teams in North America don't have to play as often in Europe. The problem is if there are four expansion teams in one division there could be competitive level problems vs. the rest of the league, but it would insure a European team in the playoffs as the division champ which would be good to build the league in Europe. My picks for cities would be #1 London, #2 Berlin, #3/#4 Barcelona/Germany #2 (At the end NFL Europe was almost all German teams) #5/#6 Amsterdam/Germany #3 #7/#8 Rome/Paris.

I've heard everything from contraction to 28 teams to expansion to 40 teams. Personally, I don't see the NFL expanding too much more (maybe to 36). If that were the case, I'd say go to 18 games, 6 divisions of 6. 10 division games, 6 games against an entire other division (changes on a 5 year-rotation), 2 games against teams in different divisions who placed the same (divisions of such teams change on a 5-year rotation). I would personally realign according to geography, but I know that goes against the grain of longtime rivalries, but this is what I would do...

1 game per divisional rival (5 games)1 return game against a divisional rival, on a 5-year rotation (1 game)2 games against teams from each of the other divisions in the conference, rotated home and away over six years (4 games)1 game against each opponent from a division in the other conference, rotated home and away over six years (6 games)

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